Is evolution a myth

Answer 1

As far as we know now it is. There is ample scientific evidence to support it. Some ask, "if we evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes today?" Eugenie Scott (head of the NCSE) responds that that question is equivalent to, "if I descended from my cousin, why does my cousin still exist?

In answer biologists explain that you did not descend from your cousin, but that you and your cousin share common ancestry. Similarly, humans and the other primates (tarsiers, lorises, monkeys, apes) appear to have evolved from a common ancestor.

Natural selection acting on the available genetic variations within a species creates variations according to the needs and selection pressures in a particular environment. This can create a large amount of variation in a relatively short time such as in all the dogs, together with jackals, coyotes and wolves, which are all interfertile, yet which appear quite different in many ways.

We know the earth is billions of years old because we have accurate dating techniques that reveal that fact to us. Long lived isotopes, such as Uranium 235 and 238, Thorium, and Potassium 40 have half lives measured in millions and billions of years. The ratios of parent to daughter isotopes in decent samples reveals the time at which the rocks containing these elements were formed.

On every continent we have found fossils of dinosaurs (including Antarctica). And on every continent where we have found dinosaur fossils we have also found volcanic ash strata above and below those rocks--not always where we find dinosaur fossils, but fortunately often enough. The reason this is fortunate is that volcanic rock can provide absolute dates using the aforementioned radioisotopes that yield good estimates for the fossil bearing strata. Everywhere we have done this (and reliable dates have been obtained many hundreds of times) we have NEVER dated dinosaur fossils less than about 63 million years, or more than 250 million years old. The cretaceous/tertiary boundary has been accurately dated on all seven continents to about 65 million years ago.

The oldest fossils we find are of single celled marine organisms. Stromatolites (bacterial mats of aquatic colonies) have been dated to more than 3 billion years ago. So for several billion years earth's oceans teemed with single celled organisms while its land surface remained barren. A little over half a billion years ago we find the first multicellular organisms, still all in the oceans. Nothing on land. In the Silurian vascular plants first make their way on land, and primitive insects. Within a dozen million years or so we find the earliest amphibians, bearing uncanny resemblance to devonian lungfish. The tetrapodal structure of these earliest land animals is inherited by all subsequent terrestrial vertebrates, up until some reptiles (snakes) lose their limbs.

Nothing about the theory of evolution violates any physical laws, contrary to what some misinformed individuals may claim. Otherwise, scientists would readily reject the theory. In addition, nuclear physicists didn't simply invent evidence for an ancient earth to satisfy the needs of paleobiologists--they came by that evidence most naturally. Even before radioisotopes, however, earth scientists had worked out very closely the ages of the cenozoic, mesozoic, and paleozoic periods using well understood geological processes.

Finally, nothing about the theory of evolution denies the existence of God. It was widely believed, before Copernicus and Newton, that the planets were pushed about their orbits by heavenly hosts of angels. Newton's theory of gravity did not disprove the existence of angels any more than Darwin's theory disproves the existence of a Creator.

Answer 2

No. It is an observable and replicable process, with hundredsof thousands of data supporting it.